So when the UK sleeps, we know you other MNers are out there part II

[tadjennyp]

I was looking for thumbwitch's recipe for that cake and found the old thread has disappeared so Linzer and I thought we'd resurrect it!

he's been, checked what needs doing & coming back soon to fix it - just the soldering from earlier didn't hold.

but did i mention i have friends coming round for wine night? 10 ladies full of champagne, and no toilets!

so am i a freak cos i don't feel comfortable going to do my nails/make-up etc cos he's down in the basement playing with my pipes?

why is that?

Ha! I am a fool. I posted purely in response to Tad's post, forgetting that previously I had read about Linzer's DH and his family situation. I see that my remark looked completely fatuous in context and apologise!

Linzer - it is a shocking state of affairs, what your PILs have done. But I guess it lets you out from any caring of them that may need to be done - your SIL needs to "pay her bill" somewhere down the line.

I agree that Linzer's SIL will be doing the bulk of the caring responsibility if she already has a free house to live in from her parents. Are things passed to the first dd in Austria? Or is it just because she didn't move away?

Kickass that could be read entirely differently if I had had the champagne you were talking about! Hope you had a fun night!

In other news, I am already 2 1/2 cm dilated, and 90% thinned out. OB doesn't think I will go full term. Slightly worried now as having been having pains over the last couple of days. Don't want to stray too far from the house, just in case! Not due till Feb 9th!

oh crikey, tad - hope it all goes smoothly if this is "it"(which it sounds like it might be) :)

Ooh, how exciting jenny - keep us updated!

Yes, DH has said that SIL will now have the responsibility of caring for her parents as they get older (if they need it of course; they are both in their seventies and still do the majority of work in the house and garden) so it's not necessarily an easy option for her.

We found out from other friends later that it's not the way things are done in other parts of Austria - just where DH is from, which is a very rural area and where farms were passed down to the child who wanted to take over the farming (PIL's house is actually an old farmhouse). The thing that annoyed me wasn't so much that DH didn't get anything from his parents, as they'd put all their money into the house, but the fact that no one could see it was unfair. Actually, DH did get two plots of land - as did his sister, as the land had to be divided equally - and sold the one that was actually worth something as we needed money to buy our own house. SIL didn't want the land leaving the family but kicked up a fuss about how much we wanted for it and gave us ?20,000 less than we'd hoped for. This was despite the fact that they'd inherited the whole house and must have so much money themselves - they both work (lawyer and teacher), have never had a house to buy or rent to pay, have only been paying bills since the house was signed over to them, etc. Even PIL thought SIL and her DH were being very mean and gave us ?5000 towards our house (even though they don't have much money themselves), but had to do so in secret as they didn't want SIL finding out.

Apologies for the rant but it still annoys me six years later!

Yes, you'd think out of a sense of decency they would have given you the price it was worth. And they have to give you money in secret though she gets a whole house? I would brace yourself for a another dose of entitlement when the PILs do start aging and can't cope with doing all the work on their own. Hopefully SIL will step up to the plate, but I doubt it. for you.

That's so unfair! DH has an aunt who's screwing every penny out if the grandmother on one side and one of the other side who halved the value of the house by building a monstrosity in the bavk garden for her and her family to live in.

Hope your pipes got fixed kickass and much champagne was consumed. I feel funny about going and doing stuff when there are strange people in 'the house. I have a tendency to hover (and annoy).

jenny eeeeek! Good luck if this is it! 9th Feb isn't that far away so it could well be :)

gosh, jenny. i'm actually quite envious. i spent days in labour & never got to 2 cm!

one of my cousins is due this week, and her fb status is all 'oh, i have back-ache, maybe ...'
her first kid was 2 weeks late, so i think she's just desperate. let's face it, at 8 1/2 months pregnant, back-ache could just be back-ache. still, i keep checking in.

It takes ages to dilate with the first, doesn't it? Hope your cousin is ok.

Oh kickass - you never said how the champagne went!

champagne went fine, though there are various sick kids so numbers were reduced, or people leaving early.

we do a silly thing where we re-gift unwanted items, but they still have to be 'gift worthy' iyswim.

well, there's this one little wooden trinket box, that plays a little twinkly tune & it says on it ' how blessed i am, how fortunate i've been ... that you are my daughter in law and also my friend.'

now the woman who got this originally does not have a blessed of friendly relationship with her mil, and mil says some nasty things at times, so this gift is like the 'booby prize' & if you get it, you have to 'do' something with it, like add a chuck e cheese sticker, or put something v 'odd' inside it.

anyway, i got it last night (i'd forgotten who had it, and thought i'd dodged the bullet). thing is, the husband of the original owner (who loves his mother dearly & does everything she wants, and thinks his wife still has this thing) was playing pool with dh in the basement. so we just kept talking about it, then shushing each other so he wouldn't hear, then laughing & talking about it some more.

we've planned to secretly return it to the original owner by hiding it on her house somewhere. she doesn't know i have it, so i'll sneak it in.

i have a feeling it was all a lot funnier with the champagne inside us.

btw, pipes fixed & working fine. hurrah!

Sounds like a laugh, glad pipes are working. Planning a day doing things like Costco, getting window blinds sorted. May not have the chance again for a while!

That sounds like a fun evening, kickass. I'm making do with wine rather than champagne here this evening and have just managed to pour half a glass all over myself, which is probably a sign that I've had enough. Six years of pg and bfing have not been good for my alcohol tolerance levels!

How are you doing now jenny - any more cm dilated? DD2 arrived so quickly that I was worried about DS being born at home, but he ended up being an EMCS (two weeks before my due date). Good idea to get a few bits and pieces done while you can. We're planning a day out in Bratislava (OK, a day out at M&S) tomorrow; apparently they have a 70% sale on atm (about all we could understand from the e-mail) but I doubt it applies to food somehow.

Don't know about more dilated but pushing a big heavy trolley round costco has certainly left me in a bit of pain. Trouble is because it is not hurting as bad as the previous two labours, I just can't tell!

Have fun in M&S. I could do with some new knickers!

M&S delivers oversees now, you know! i have a feeling it wasn't stuff like knickers, though, but household stuff. v frustrating.

kickass - I remember looking at baby vests for DS from M&S and it appeared that they would delived those to Australia for the princely sum of £10, so I'm sure they'd do knickers.

Hahaha at the re-gifting of the MIL's gift - that's priceless. Leave it in her knicker drawer or somewhere like that!

How are you getting on Jenny? I went from 1cm to giving birth in 2 hours - but I was 2 weeks overdue and induced, so very different circumstances! Good luck with it anyway.

Nope, still here. Probably will be for weeks now! [quite tired already emoticon]

Right. Trying but failing to keep up with everyone! Being home, I do seem to be a lot busier.

Jenny - oooh, good luck (even if nothing happens for a few more weeks). I never went into labour with either of my two so can't help with symptoms. Why the name change by the way?

Kickass - I loved your tale about your unwanted re-gifting, it does sound like fun. You obviously have a good group of friends.

Linzer - I am exactly the same about alcohol, a total lightweight. People must think I am so boring, I very rarely have more than two glasses of wine. And when you are leading an "expat" lifestyle, this can be a little awkward (not that I cared).

We have been very busy these past few weeks. The girls have settled really well into their school/preschool, making friends really quickly. We live very close to lots of other children from dd1's class, which makes life easy. I am about to apply to start training as an antenatal tutor with the NCT. It wasn't my first choice (I would have preferred post-natal) but having looked into it I think this would also be very interesting and hopefully the work will fit round childcare. If I get on the course/once the training is finished.

I am also thinking of doing a part-time counselling course. However, I am a total wuss about leaving dd2 with anyone but my dh or my parents (apart from the playgroup she is at) so can't get my head around childcare. As it is I think I will have to find a childminder for her one day a week. If I do the 2nd course I might need to do it two days a week, which will obviously also cost more. So I might wait until she starts school in 2012...

Still plugging away at my novel and thinking of doing a residential writers course. There are so many options now I am home - my only regret is that I didn't do an online creative writing course while I was in St Lucia. I just felt like I sort of stagnated for 18 months....

H F-W's fish campaign stranded! It does sound like you have been really busy and got straight back into the swing of things. Good luck with all your new ventures!

Off to nest now!

Nesting is a good sign

Sounds like your settling in nicely, stranded. There's no need to tush into finding childcare etc. Besides there are so many flipping rules in the UK now anyway that it's hard to know where to start looking. Good luck with your application :)

Your evening sounds like it went great, kickass, and I'm loving the regifting idea, especially that twee little box.

How was Bratislava/M&S, linzer? I may have to investigate the possibilities for international delivery. They used to be in France but I don't know what happened. A lot of the British high street stores lulled out and now there's only WHSmiths really.

I'm having laaaazy day today. Trying to shake a cold/sore throat because we're off to SA in 3 days and I don't want to be refused entry to the country for being ill!

Hope you're feeling better soon, frakk. How long will you be in SA for?

Glad to hear you're settling down well, stranded; it certainly sounds like you're keeping busy.

We had a good trip to Bratislava yesterday - spent too much money, but that's the sign of a successful shopping trip. We popped into Mothercare and bought some clothes in the sale, but otherwise spent most of our time at M&S. They used to have three shops in Vienna, but closed all their stores on the continent when they were having financial difficulties about 12 years ago. They've been opening new stores in Eastern Europe over the last few years, but I do wonder how much of a profit they can be making - the cafe is always virtually empty whenever we're there and the homeware/stationery department is full of things like calendars, diaries and recipe journals - all in English, so I'm not sure how much demand there would be on the Slovak market.

We're there for a week. Pre-baby blowout!

M&S and Mothercare

i never used to shop much in m&s, but weirdly, i wish i could now.

i don't like their clothes & we have good enough food here, i think it would just feel v 'home-like' to be able to wander around in there.

Hope you have a good trip, Frakk.

I'm not overly keen on M&S clothes either - at least not for me (apart from the underwear), but I do like their children's clothes and picked up quite a few things in the sale yesterday. The selection varies a lot from store to store, though; I always used to be able to find lots of nice clothes at M&S in Frankfurt, but remember then going to one of their stores in Wales and being shocked at how frumpy everything was. A friend of mine who used to work at M&S in Chesterfield said that they didn't use to stock skirts (or not many, at any rate) as there was just no demand for them there.

I also like going to the cafe and being able to order a jacket potato with baked beans (even though it's something I'm perfectly capable of making myself at home)!